Independent (Movie Genre)

When Blythe Danner turned 70, her daughter threw her a surprise party. Gwyneth Paltrow even decorated a cake for her mother: The icing read, "A Streetcar Named Retired." "I said, 'Beg your pardon?'" Danner recalled. "She thought that was hilarious, and I said, 'Well, I'm going to show her!'" Just a couple of years later, Danner has surpassed even her own expectations for herself, starring in her first major feature film, "I'll See You in My Dreams," at the age of 72. Of course, it was perfectly reasonable for Paltrow to expect her mom to slow down as she became a septuagenarian. Danner has been a working actress...

"Coca-Cola has no place here," declares the 19-year-old protagonist of "A Young Patriot," one of the films showcased at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival. "Coca-Cola is very foreign."
In this timely...

The nation buzzed about the Sunday finale of the HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst" as if it was the shocking twist of a Shonda Rhimes drama series or a marriage proposal gone wrong on "The...

A trial focusing on film set safety and criminal liability is scheduled to open Monday in a small town in Georgia, attracting intense interest from Hollywood.
Three executives of an independent film company based in Pasadena face charges of involuntary...

In the new film "'71," set in bloody Northern Ireland during the Troubles between Catholics and Protestants, a young soldier must find his way back to his barracks. It's a story both simple and filled with complexities, a gripping,...

J.K. Simmons has found his tempo. The veteran performer won the Academy Award for supporting actor Sunday with his portrayal of a domineering music teacher in the taut jazz drama "Whiplash."
Accepting his first Oscar (on his first...

The Spirit Awards. The Independent Spirit Awards. The Indie Spirits. It's an awards show so casual-cool that organizers don't even much mind what you call it.
The Film Independent Spirit Awards, as they are officially known to recognize the Los...

Inside a 260,000-square-foot warehouse just over the Grapevine off Interstate 5, an archivist from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences clambered up a ladder to inspect a stack of dusty 35-millimeter film cans.
"What are some of the...

Writer-director Andrew Bujalski has been one of the leading figures of the micro-budget independent film scene for more than a decade. From his early films “Funny Ha Ha” and “Mutual Appreciation” to the mini-masterpiece of “Beeswax,” he has assayed modern...

Immense effort and countless dollars go into securing Oscar nominations, not to mention winning the actual awards. But what of those worthy candidates that never have a real shot to compete because of lack of promotional funds, fleeting theatrical...

Who’s counting? “Unexpected,” which premieres Sunday at Sundance as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition, is technically Kris Swanberg’s third feature film. Yet it is the first feature on which she has used such common elements of filmmaking as a script,...

Ethan Hawke was taking his kids to school. J.K. Simmons was fighting a bad cold and sleeping in an Atlanta hotel room. Marion Cotillard was awakened by her ringing cellphone. At first she thought it was her son. When she saw it was her agent, she said,...

A statuesque young man with family troubles. An abusive pimp with diabolical facial hair. And a lithe young vampire who wears a chador and rides a skateboard. All of these were set to a Sergio Leone-ish soundtrack, filmed in lush black-and-white...

Samuel Goldwyn Jr., who was born into one of the founding families of the Hollywood studio system but became a champion of independent film productions, died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 88.
The cause was congestive heart...

Putting the holiday season fully to rest and switching the machinery of awards season back into high gear, the Palm Springs International Film Festival held its awards gala Saturday night with Reese Witherspoon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Keaton, Steve...

Sony garnered a lot of media attention after its controversial comedy "The Interview" pulled in an unprecedented $15 million from video-on-demand platforms in four days.
The film, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco, is about the...

Steven Spielberg's 1998 World War II epic, "Saving Private Ryan," Joel and Ethan Coen's cult comedy "The Big Lebowski" and the 1976 drama "Please Don't Bury Me Alive!" — considered by historians to be the first Chicano...

As her new film "Selma" begins to surge in the year-end awards race on its way to a Christmas Day opening, filmmaker Ava DuVernay was announced today as keynote speaker for the upcoming South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival. The...

For months, the only consensus about this year's awards race has been that there is an overall lack of consensus. But the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations Wednesday started to bring some clarity, focusing the conversation around two front-runners...